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Tuesday, July 10, 2012

in other words

Idiom:in other words; used as an adverb

First Example:

Movie Review: The dialogue sounds so fake, and
the acting is so unrealistic, the audience laughed when they were supposed to
cry. Meanwhile, the story itself is pretty
uninteresting, and the second half is so boring, the person sitting in front of
me fell asleep and starting snoring. I
couldn't wait for the movie to end, and I almost walked out in the middle. In
other words, you should not see this movie.

Meaning: "In other words" means to "put it another,
shorter way." This expression is usually
used after a list, giving a quick summary.
In the example above, the movie critic states a number of negative
things about the film and then follows up with the summary statement "you
should not see this movie." This
idiom is often put at the beginning of a sentence. Look at another example.

Second Example (click on video to hear the example below)

Job Advertisement: Do you work well both alone and with
others? Do other people usually care
about your opinion, and they often do what you suggest? Are you dependable and reliable, but also
willing to take risks? In other words,
are you a leader?

Here, the person writing this job
advertisement asks about a number of qualities that the job seeker might
have. Then, he or she asks if the job
seeker is a leader. This means that
whoever wrote this job advertisement believes that these qualities together
make up a leader.

This idiom is from LSI's book "Speaking
Transitions," which is used in the Level 4 Listening/Speaking classes. For
more information, please visit http://www.languagesystems.com/